Jade Simmons
Large gatherings are easy to schedule and hard to make memorable. Leaders convene their organisations for strategy resets, anniversaries, sales kick-offs and town halls, then watch the room flatten by mid-afternoon. The work of moving a thousand people from passive attention to belief in what comes next is rarely on anyone’s job description.
Jade Simmons is a concert pianist and keynote performer who builds mainstage experiences for corporate audiences, using live music and a purpose-and-reinvention message to lift the energy and intent of a room.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Jade Simmons
- A mainstage moment that combines a Steinway, live performance and a structured keynote, rather than a podium talk. Few speakers can carry that format credibly at scale.
- A classical performance pedigree that holds up under scrutiny: Sphinx Medal of Excellence, performances at the White House and the US Supreme Court, repertoire from Rachmaninoff to contemporary crossover work.
- Author of an Amazon bestseller, Audacious Prayers for World Changers, and host of American Public Media’s Decomposed, a podcast named to best-of lists by Time, Esquire, BBC America and IndieWire.
- A track record headlining for Dell, NBCUniversal, Raytheon, Pfizer, Intuit QuickBooks, Nationwide, Hershey’s and Royal Bank of Canada at sales kick-offs, leadership summits and culture events.
Biography highlights
- Recipient of the Sphinx Organization’s Medal of Excellence, with the ceremony hosted at the US Supreme Court by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
- Concert performances at the White House, Ravinia, Chicago Sinfonietta at Symphony Hall, New York’s Town Hall and the Detroit Institute of Arts.
- Host of Decomposed on American Public Media, recognised by Time, Esquire, BBC America and IndieWire.
- Author of Audacious Prayers for World Changers (Amazon bestseller, English and Spanish editions) and Purpose the Remix.
- CEO and founder of Jade Media Global; ran as an independent candidate for US President in 2020.
- Northwestern University undergraduate; Master’s as a Provost Fellow at Rice University; first runner-up at Miss America 2000.
Biography
Corporate audiences sit through more keynotes in a year than most of them care to count. The hardest brief a programme committee inherits is the opening or closing slot at a large convening, where the room needs to lift, not settle. A piano on stage and a performer who can also hold a leadership argument is one of the few formats that reliably moves a thousand people from neutral attention to engagement.
Simmons built that format from the classical concert hall. She holds the Sphinx Organization’s Medal of Excellence, awarded in a ceremony at the US Supreme Court hosted by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Her concert resume includes the White House, Ravinia, the Chicago Sinfonietta at Symphony Hall and New York’s Town Hall. She trained at Northwestern and Rice, where she held a Provost Fellowship.
The keynote work extends the performance into a structured message about purpose, reinvention and what she calls “Maverick Behavior.” She has headlined for Dell, NBCUniversal, Raytheon, Pfizer, Intuit QuickBooks, Nationwide, Hershey’s and Royal Bank of Canada. Her book Audacious Prayers for World Changers is an Amazon bestseller in English and Spanish, and her American Public Media podcast Decomposed has been named to best-of lists by Time, Esquire, BBC America and IndieWire.
She also runs Jade Media Global, the company that produces her live experiences and content. Buyers commission her when the brief is to make a single moment in a long agenda the one people remember.
Key speaking topics
- Purpose and reinvention
- Leadership and self-leadership
- Creativity and personal innovation
- Performance and mainstage entertainment
- Diversity and inclusion as a culture lever
- Personal branding and creative identity
- Resilience and breakthrough
Ideal for
- CEO town halls, sales kick-offs and annual leadership conferences that need a mainstage opener or closer
- Chief People Officers and culture leads programming purpose, inclusion or engagement events
- Awards nights, customer summits and recognition events where the room needs to feel something specific
- Industries booking marquee music-led keynotes (financial services, pharma, tech, professional services)
Audience outcomes
- A shared mainstage moment the room references for the rest of the agenda
- A direct, personal message on purpose, reinvention and creative courage
- A live concert performance that sits inside, not alongside, the keynote argument
- Practical language for leaders to talk about reinvention with their own teams
Talks
A leadership keynote on leading through monumental change with conviction.
Key takeaways:
- A working definition of purpose-led leadership grounded in personal example
- Language for senior leaders to make audacious decisions defensible to their teams
- A live performance segment that anchors the argument in the room
A keynote on the mindset shifts that move people from status quo to original action.
Key takeaways:
- The behaviours that distinguish convention from useful disruption
- A self-leadership frame for individual contributors and senior leaders
- A music-driven close designed to send the audience back to work changed
A keynote built around recognising and positioning for breakthrough moments.
Key takeaways:
- Cues that signal a breakthrough is closer than it feels
- A practical posture for leaders facing slow, uncertain progress
- A performance segment used as the emotional engine of the talk
A diversity and inclusion keynote built on curiosity as the operating principle.
Key takeaways:
- An inclusion frame that does not rely on compliance language
- Practical questions leaders can ask of their own teams
- A mainstage performance moment that anchors the message